Friday 01-27-12

NJ camel predicts Giants will win the Super Bowl

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - People use all sorts of ways to try to predict the winner of the Super Bowl: comparing regular season records, judging who looked stronger in the post-season run-up to the big game, or watching the betting lines from Las Vegas oddsmakers.

But the closest thing to a sure thing may come from a camel in New Jersey.

Princess, the star of New Jersey's Popcorn Park Zoo, has correctly picked the winner of five of the last six Super Bowls. She went 14 and 6 predicting regular season and playoff games this year, and has a lifetime record of 88-51.

Her pick this year: The New York Giants.

The Bactrian camel's prognostication skills flow from her love of graham crackers. Zoo general manager John Bergmann places a cracker and writes the name of the competing teams on each hand. Whichever hand Princess nibbles from is her pick. On Wednesday, she made her pick with no hesitation at all, predicting bad news for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, even though the Las Vegas oddsmakers have New England favored by about 3 points.

Her only miscue in the big game was picking the Indianapolis Colts over the New Orleans Saints two years ago, indicating that even camels know it's generally risky to go against Peyton Manning.

"It started out when a local radio station was looking to have some fun, so they asked Princess who was going to win a particular game each week, and it just took off from there," Bergmann said. "Now we have guys calling up on Sunday morning wanting to know who Princess has picked that week. One guy even asked if she does lottery numbers."

Her best season was 2008, when she got 17 out of 22 games right, including correctly picking the Pittsburgh Steelers to win the Super Bowl.

Princess doesn't do point spreads. But she has nearly mastered the art of picking straight-up winners.

The cunning camel was once the personal pet of heiress Doris Duke, the only child of tobacco and electric energy tycoon James Buchanan Duke.

Doris Duke raised Princess and her sister Babe from youngsters, Bergmann said.

The pair of camels had their own barn, and spent summers at Duke's Rhode Island estate. During bad weather, they were put up in the solarium.

After Duke's death in 1993, the camels stayed on her estate in Hillsborough. Babe died several years ago, leaving just Princess.

When Princess' caretaker was about to retire, the estate offered Princess to Popcorn Park Zoo, which took her in. The zoo cares for abandoned and abused animals.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=351&sid=2723459

Wake Up ! Mystery disease cluster grows
LE ROY, N.Y. – Three more high school students here have reported neurological symptoms like those of a dozen classmates who exhibited unusual tics and verbal outbursts in recent months.

The three students came forward in the past few days and are "being evaluated by private medical professionals," said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the New York Department of Health.

Previously, 12 high school students at Le Roy High, all of them girls, had reported symptoms not unlike those of Tourette's syndrome. One boy is among the new patients, according to Dr. Laszlo Mechtler of the Dent Neurologic Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.

MORE: N.Y. teens' mystery illness labeled 'conversion disorder'
Mechtler, a neurologist who has treated all but one of the original 12 girls, previously said tests had ruled out medical disorders, diseases and environmental factors.

So far the diagnosis has been a stress-related, possibly neurological condition referred to as conversion disorder. The suggestion is that one student developed symptoms and other students unconsciously followed suit.

The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., now says any of the students who wish to travel to its facilities can be tested.

"We are very interested in psychogenic movement disorders," said Dr. Mark Hasslett, chief of the NIH Medical Neurology Branch. "When we saw that there were patients that had possible conversion disorder, we wanted to make the doctors aware that we're interested in making second opinions on these cases."

The second opinion would include a physical examination and possible neurophysiological testing, Haslett said. Others eligible also could participate in an ongoing conversion disorder research study there.

The cluster of cases in New York apparently dates to sometime last year but wasn't publicly reported until early November when the number of afflicted students was six. The situation gained national attention when two of the girls appeared last week on NBC's "Today" show.

In addition to the three new cases, two teen-age girls in Saratoga County with seemingly similar symptoms also have come forward. Their only apparent connection to Le Roy High School is a claim that they ate lunch there one day in the summer. They were interviewed Tuesday by an Albany, N.Y., television station. Hammond said the state health department is not looking into those cases.

Le Roy school superintendent Kim Cox issued a written statement Wednesday acknowledging "a few new possible cases." She reiterated that earlier testing had ruled out environmental contaminants or infections as a cause.

Contributing: Melissa Holmes, WGRZ-TV, Buffalo, N.Y.; Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

http://www.preparednesscenter.us/p/index.php?topic=596.msg1000;topicseen#new